Pillaging!

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Pillaging the AI was one of the more enjoyable things about CivII, and I've found it even more satisfying in Civ3. With the advent of luxuries and resource connections, snipping roads becomes a tactical strategy. It's not just for fun anymore - tho the fun derived is greater.

Anyway, I've made a habit of having a horse unit wander around the world, pillaging any improvement in neutral territory, no matter who uses it. (Now, I'm bound to cut off a luxury for which I trade some day, then I'll be more careful... ) In wartime, it seems best to pillage a city's road connections than to actually attack. First it goes into disorder. Once that is quelled, it only produces wimpy defenders. Roll in the bad guys, and the city is yours.

I've typically used mounted units to do this. Have any of you come up with effective pillaging strategies? Such as combos of units, numbers of them, etc. Also, does bombarding land around cities work the same as pillaging? I've not tried that yet...

[DrSpike]

I usually play as the aztecs, and a nice strat is to keep around some (2-move) Jaguar warriors way after they're obselete, to use them as diversions. When you're attacking with your modern force your opponent brings out his forces to meet them, and the jaguar warrior nips in and pillages as much as he can behind enemy lines. The sight of multiple tanks bearing down on one unit with a defence of 1 is hilarious.

[OldTime-Civer]

Bombarding terrain has the same effect as pillaging. Units are not always succesfull. I too love the new effects pillaging has on the enemy and always use it to isolate the city I am attacking. I also love sneaking into an enemy city's area and snipping all the roads leading up to it, just to cause more havoc.

[La Fayette]

Something is sure: the AI does it. It does it a lot.
Sometimes it's plain fun: in my last game, an American battleship spent 15 turns destroying a mountain road that led to nowhere. I had a vital shipchain 8 tiles away and was very happy to look at the monster so busy elsewhere...
Sometimes it's no fun at all: when the AI destroys all the roads leading to a good city of yours and makes it turn to civil disorder, or when it cuts the one and only supply line to your one and only vital strategical ressource.
IMO if you do to the AI what you find painful when the AI does it to you, it's wise. Otherwise, it might be a waste of time...
and perhaps also a waste of good units.
My ranking of targets would be:
Supply lines (iron, coal, luxuries and the like)
Access to a city (one of the first threads on this forum was about cutting all roads leading to the AI's capital city)
Protection of your border (especially after RR, when you can get hordes of strong AI units coming from anywhere counter attacking).
My ranking of units:
Artillery (since you don't risk losses if you do it wisely) or ironclads (but artillery and ironclads are very precious anywhere else,... better choose your targets)
Obsolete fast units (not too painful to lose one once in a while)

[Aeson]

Preemptive Pillaging

I found that Scouts are quite powerful. With Expansionist Civs I usualy build about 15-20 of them very early on to explore the world. Often I can find resources (Iron, Horses) in AI territory before they have been connected with roads. Fortifying a scout on a resource keeps the AI from building roads there. After a while the AI requests that I remove my troops, but I have yet to see them demand that I move my Scouts. On a game I specifically played to take advantage of this, I kept every AI Civ without Iron or Horses until I was ready to attack them. This can be used to deny the AI luxuries in some cases as well. Also Scouts can pillage on their own, and hitting those roads in neutral territory can really hamper the AI's expansion as well. I wonder if this would work for Explorers later on in the game?

[Haertgaeden]

Originally posted by La Fayette
..... in my last game, an American battleship spent 15 turns destroying a mountain road that led to nowhere. I had a vital shipchain 8 tiles away and was very happy to look at the monster so busy elsewhere...

I discovered something similar while recently being attacked by the Chinese. I had built several forts - which I had never bothered to man - within a chain of coastal mountains and hills. I had two cities nearby, both of strategic importance to me. China had amassed an awesome navy, complete with galleons and ironclads. Rather than bombarding my cities, the Chinese decided to spend countless turns destroying these empty forts.

That gave me time to build up my own navy and launch a counter-offensive - which, by the way, was unsuccessful.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Aeson
Preemptive Pillaging
...Fortifying a scout on a resource keeps the AI from building roads there.

Excellent idea! I will hafta play an expansionist civ soon. This is the sort of idea I seek.

[Aeson]

I just found out that the AI does eventually demand that you withdraw Scouts if you have 2 or more in their territory. Seems to be about 20-40 turns on average. This can be circumvented by signing ROP agreements. I still haven't had them demand that I move a lone Scout. Also I was able to get my Scouts back in position before the AI got workers to the resource the few times they had to be removed. This greatly imbalances game play, and I don't intend on using it anymore. I kept 8 Civs on Deity without Iron, most of them without Horses, until I had 50+ Knights knocking on their doors.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Aeson
This greatly imbalances game play, and I don't intend on using it anymore. I kept 8 Civs on Deity without Iron, most of them without Horses, until I had 50+ Knights knocking on their doors.

Gad. The Firaxis programmers must hate the creative minds here at Apolyton. I design business simulations for a living, and time after time our seminar participants come up with a combination of decisions that I "never in a million years" would have thought of. In my case, it usually means a bug that blows them out of the water, rather than an undocumented feature that blows the *game* out of the water, but still...